The investigation into the women began after a parent, Sydney Zimmerman, found her 22-month-old son, Slade, in a closet at the day care, which was run out of one of the women’s homes. Zimmerman told the news station that she arrived early one day to pick her son up.

“I followed her in and then she goes to the closet, opens the closet door, turns the light on and my son is sitting there, strapped in a car seat that is not his, and the first thing he says when he sees me is, ‘Mama,’” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said the closet was hot because the home’s air conditioning did not circulate in the small, enclosed space.